Sunday, October 15, 2006

I'm back in California again and about two hours after I arrived back on the Left Coast I was leading an all-day Zazen retreat. Which was attended by 9 people (including me & Yuka), by the way. This was good because the first guy who signed up ended up not coming. Thank you all for coming. And for those of you who read this blog & live out here but never show up: Too bad, you lose. I say that because as I'm sitting there sitting it dawned on me just how very special Zazen really is.

Up till now I've tended to say things like "Zen is boring" or that it's just a lot of staring at walls with your legs all achy and that there's no Enlightenment and no Higher States of Consciousness and all that rigamarole. That's all true. But maybe I've given the impression that Zazen is all boredom and pain. It's not. If it was I wouldn't have been doing it every day for the past 20-odd years.

I say those seemingly negative things about Zazen because I'm turned off by all the hype you hear about meditation from most people who promote it. That kind of stuff always turned me off from trying any of those practices. It wasn't till I found a teacher who was honest enough to say that it was often painful and boring that I actually decided to try it out. But now I feel like maybe I went too far in the opposite direction and maybe I'm giving people the impression that there are no benefits to Zazen, or that the benefits of Zazen are the same as what you might get out of playing bass in a hardcore band or jogging or whatever. They're not. Zazen is way better.

Being exposed to the kind of noise and clutter most people seem to fill their lives with for a week and then cutting all that out for a day made a huge difference. We are constantly dumping obscene amounts of toxic garbage into our minds and then we wonder why we're so muddled and unable to stay focused. There's a kind of centeredness you get from Zazen practice that you cannot get anywhere else. And there's a power to practice with a group that cannot be found in any other activity. It is truly an amazing thing our buddy Mr. Gotama discovered all those many years ago. You ought to try it sometime.

39 comments:

I sat with a group in a City about 20 miles from here... did it four weeks in a row on a Friday for 1/2 hour. It was great, but then as is normal the leader of the group gives a brief talk and allows comments. Maybe I'm just too cynical but these people are way too nice for me, they remind me a Christians that have the phoney smiles on their faces or any other group for that matter, excluding the FSM of course. The Zazen was great but the talks started to bug me so I have not been back for three weeks. More attachment for me, attached to not wanting to hear these people talk. I guess I'm just a bad bad duck and will be quacking alone.

I'm afraid you're going to run into this problem a lot, because Buddhists are generally pretty nice people. Even, in my experience, the punk rockers. I'm not sure whay you would rather hang out with people who aren't nice, but to each his own.

One of the things I have noticed from sitting every day Zazen is I that often I have very subtle thoughts of goals in mind.

One should sit Zazen for the sake of Zazen itself without any goal in mind. Balance and the benefits of Zazen will happen natrually, but balance sure won't come if your are thinking about some kind of goal or future enlightment. The goal is to sit in the correct Zazen posture and thats all.

Once again, just something I have noticed with my own practice of Zazen.

The difference between too nice and real. Thanks for all the imput did not mean to steal the message string here... or maybe I did cause I'm not that nice. But okay I guess nice people are alright no doubt, just not real interesting like you all here ;)

". Maybe I'm just too cynical but these people are way too nice for me, they remind me "

It is fair to say that some people who run these things have a veneer of niceness that is ahead of their attainment.

It goes with the territory. "Buddhists" are "supposed" to be "nice" and so lots of people cultivate "niceness" more than they cultivate their "practice". The result is a little false.

But, there are a lot of genuinely nice people around and often the veneer is only a little sugar coating of an already nice person.

One thing that I should warn you about is that if you do meet someone who is genuinely as nice as they appear they might well irritate the hell out of you because it is a reminder that you are not like that.

I think that the idea of posting comments is that they should relate to Brads article.I am a newbie to this so maybe i have got it wrong.Since reading Brads book i have developed a keen interest in Buddhist beliefs and have recently started to practice zazen.I struggle with it and feel some times that i just don't get it but persevere in a blind faith that the penny will eventually drop.I was pleased that Brad clarified his comment on zazen being so boring as they were hardly inspirational for a newcomer to this.If zazen is boring try reading about punk rock!The other bits in the book were however profound.

Since reading Brads book i have developed a keen interest in Buddhist beliefs and have recently started to practice zazen.I struggle with it and feel some times that i just don't get it but persevere in a blind faith that the penny will eventually drop.

Meditation practice does have the infuriating quality that you feel you just don't get it...if only you work a little harder, then you'll see it. The problem is, you're looking in the wrong direction because of your preconceptions. The only advice I can give is to sit without any hope of getting anything or fear of missing it. Just simple minded practice every day. Eventually your preconceptions will show themselves for what they are: just more thoughts. And when they are dropped, the truth that was always there will stand revealed.

Oh, and one more thing. You also need a teacher you can trust to keep you from going off in the wrong direction. In my experience the biggest problem people have is attachment to meditation. Usually beginners are attached to the external form of practice and older students to the sense of peace they get from practice. (Yes, practice starts out boring but doesn't stay boring.) Also, sometimes people will trip out on some theory. The teacher is there to shake you up when this happens.

Please don't let minor problems stand in the way of finding a teacher you can work with.

The official conspiracy theory --that 19 incompetent pilots withbox-cutters led by a guy in acave in Afghanistan pulled off ahighly complex operation -- just does not fit the facts. Thus, thatis one conspiracy theory I do notbelieve.

> dumber than dumberer.

Also, there are a small number ofpeople in the US and foreigngovernments who would sacrifice asmall number of citizens for whatthey see as a greater cause:

(Also, sorry for these seeminglyoff-topic postings, but trying toignore the elephant in the livingroom is disturbing my feebleattempts at zazen. And if thepurpose of zazen is to minimizeour suffering, then we gotta startdealing with the elephant ;)

Dear god I can't believe I want to comment to ths... must... resist...

Nah.

So here're some things I strongly believe about the whole 9/11 nonsensical mess.

The trade center buildings are the only three skyscrapers in the history of all mankind to collapse due to fire. I don't think fire caused them to come down at all, thats probably a lie. Another reason I think that the use of explosives (and probably thermite or something similar) was involved is because a simple collapse would not create such massive pyroclastic clouds to roll across the city. Only powerful explosives (as powerful as a volcanic blast) could pull that off.

It's fun to talk and argue about who's responsible and why, but I don't know if that promotes a whole lot of awareness. It seems more like a big neon distraction from the real situation. Whoever done it, seeking to eliminate them and their kind will not solve the problem. Deep inside we're all as "twisted" as we say they are.

If everyone faces themselves and all the strangness in their everyday life, then it may be possible for violence to be ended without threatening more violence to the violators.

Good point! My first primate instinctis to torture the torturers, butperhaps a more karmically beneficialapproach would be some form of Restorative Justice whereby thewrongdoers pay damages to the victimsor their families.

Also, nonviolent resistancemovements sometimes end up likeWhite Rose. Even the Dalai Lama hassaid that he wished the Tibetanpopulace had been armed with riflesto defend themselves against theChinese. And how successful wouldAmerican Revolutionaries have beenwith a nonviolent resistance againstthe British Empire? And why didthey think the Second Amendment wassuch a big deal? What might historylook like if the German Jews hadbeen armed and fought back?

Having lived in a Zen Monastery in the US, I can guarantee you that Buddhists are not always "nice". All the emotions that you can think of show up in one way or another, at least in the resident's interactions with one another.

During sitting we are practicing the letting go of anger, ignorance, and greed. It makes sense that you feel all nice when you arise from your cushion.

However there are no guarantees in Zen. One of the angriest, raging people I have met was the Abbot of a monastery. It's all grist for the mill.